Report: F-35 can't dogfight. Lockheed Martin: Not so fast

You may have seen a highly critical report insinuating that the F-35 fighter jet can be outmaneuvered by its predecessor, the F-16. The Military said the report is misleading: what's going on here?

War Is Boring published a report which said the F-35 can't dogfight, based on a report from a test pilot it obtained. The post gained significant traction on the web, prompting officials from Lockheed Martin to make an official response Wednesday which said the report "didn't tell the entire story."

Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jet is the product of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, a U.S. Department of Defense initiative to develop a multi-purpose jet to replace a variety of aging aircraft still in service. Since the beginning, the JSF program has been mired in controversy due to its incredibly high cost of $400 Billion (and counting), and its many setbacks. The F-35 finds itself in the media often, and many see it as a symbol of government overspending, or as a "jack of all trades, master of none."

It's controversial, to say the least. War is Boring even published a book of all of its criticism of the F-35 called Your New Stealth Fighter Is Really, Really Awful.

After testing performed with an F-35A (which War Is Boring notes is one of the oldest F-35s in the fleet) in January, the test pilot said that the F-35 "was at a distinct energy disadvantage in a fight and operators would quickly learn it isn't an ideal regime."

The test was a mock-fight with F-35 against an F-16, undertaken to see how well the F-35 would do in a dogfight. For the F-35, the objective was to "kill" the F-16, which meant that it would have to maneuver tightly in close quarters. For the F-16, the objective was to "evade" and kill the F-16.

In the post-test report, the pilot notes the F-35 was outmaneuvered by the F-16, even thought the F-35 had the advantage of flying without any weapons, while the F-16 carried two heavy under-wing fuel tanks.

Furthermore, the pilot's visibility was severely limited because the helmet, which is a specific helmet for F-35 usage, was too big for the jet's canopy. The pilot said the "HMD [head mounted display] and canopy configuration is detrimental to visual lookout."

The Pentagon didn't dispute the veracity of this report, but they claim that it is misleading. They noted that the particular F-35A in question was not equipped with its stealth coating, that makes it invisible to radar and allows it to subdue an enemy undetected. It also lacked the ability for a pilot to fire a weapon at an enemy just by moving the helmet, not needing to point the jet at the target.

Furthermore, Lockheed Martin said that the F-35 was never intended to be a dogfighter, and instead use its stealth to attack its targets most effectively. This brings up an interesting question, as Foxtrot Alpha's Tyler Rogoway notes:

"If you don’t really need competitive maneuverability, than why do we need a fighter at all?" Said Rogoway.

In a response to the response from Lockheed Martin, War Is Boringinsinuated that the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin "moved the goalpost" for the F-35, something the Pentagon has done in the past.

In a Spring 2003 issue of Air & Space Power Journal, John Kent, a communications specialist for the JSF program said that defending itself in a dogfight was one of the goals for the F-35. War is Boring insinuates that the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin have since lowered the expectations of the F-35 in order for it to seem like more of a success.

"If the plane’s shape means an experienced pilot cannot win a one-on-one engagement at short range, the Pentagon should assume its enemies will do everything they can to exploit this weakness. Pilots cannot — and should not — put their faith in their opponents playing to the F-35’s strengths," they said.

Despite this, the F-35 has had some success recently: its vertical landing and take-off test aboard the USS Wasp aircraft carrier was a success, and reports indicate that the Pentagon will soon announce it is ready for combat.

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